Do I need to crank up my WDH ?

[GP Bob]

I took our loaded camper to the local CAT scale to get some real numbers. I also measured the tongue weight to be 800 using a shurline scale. The truck was loaded with our typical equipment in the bed (generator, 5 gal gas can, blackstone griddle, chairs and misc tools.), me the driver, one passenger (my wife) and a full tank of gas.


Prior to hooking up the camper the steer axle was at 3520 and the drive axle was at 2880


After hooking up the WDH the re-weigh had the steer axle 3220 and the drive axle at 3780.


How does the steer axle weight go down?


All the numbers are shown in the attachment.

[xc-mark]

If it was me I would look into putting 250~ 300lbs back on the steer tires. As is should be ok but would feel better with more weight on the front tires. By adding more load on the hitch bars it will help prevent sway and take a little weight off the back of the truck.

[burgmark]

The steer axle weight goes down because the hitch weight is pushing down on the rear of the tow vehicle and the rear axle is acting like the fulcrum of a lever and resulting in lift to the front.

[jerome951]

The steer axle gets lighter because you've put a load behind the rear axle and the rear axle is acting as a fulcrum. Think teeter totter...

I'm not sure if this applies to GM vehicles, but Ford's towing guide suggests hooking the trailer without the bars attached. Measure the increase in front fender height after loading the rear. The goal of the bars is to get the front fenders to drop 1/2 the distance back to the unloaded position, meaning you've added 1/2 of the weight back onto the front.
Sorry if I'm not clear. You can read Ford's guidance on page 42 here:
https://www.fleet.ford.com/content/d...owingGuide.pdf

[GP Bob]

That is kind of what I thought. I was hesitate to change the WDH setup because I measured the front fender well height before at 36 inches and 36 1/4 inches after hooking up. I read that under no circumstance were you suppose to push the front down below the unhooked up height. Rig handles good so I guess I'll stay with this setup as is.

[bneukam]

Getting the front ride height back to normal is the main reason for a WDH. If your front is back to within a 1/4” with no symptoms of wandering, or porpoising then I would say your good.

Applying too much tension where the front end is now lower than normal can cause oversteer, and the rear tires to loose traction. Including a rough ride.

Did several slight adjustments on our WDH the 1st year. The front of the truck is pretty much back to normal ride height, and ride is not much different than unloaded.

[move on]

Any amount of spring tension on a WDH will increase the tendency for the tow vehicle to oversteer and become more susceptible to a jackknife situation. This is why all pickup truck manufacturers tell you to limit the FALR (front axle load restoration) to only 25% to 50%.

[bneukam]

Yes, and without one causes wandering, and inability to maintain control at higher speeds, and high windy conditions.

Just like anything balance is key.

Coming home today saw an F250 towing a small old 70’s heavy camper, and was holding up traffic on the interstate, because he was having a hard time controlling it. Granted there could have been other factors involved, but there was no WDH.

My guess is there are way more accidents caused by no WDH, then there is with one.

[GP Bob]

I agree. It is a balance. Like I said we have not experienced excessive porpoising or sway. I was just wondering if there were some guidelines on loss of weight to the front axle. My setup reduced the weight by 300 lbs or about 8%. I guess that is why we use the fender well measurement method.

[move on]

A weight distribution hitch is not a safety device. Quite the opposite. Its only function is to prevent your rear axle from overloading from the tongue weight of the trailer. The proper, safer solution is to increase the size of the tow vehicle. Probably these hitches should be illegal, as they are in Europe.

[bneukam]

Uhhh, no. It’s function is to restore the weight back to the front axle for proper control, and steering.

But yes, I agree if your rear axle is over it’s limit without one, then you are overloaded, and your asking more of a WDH, and can cause other issues.

Again, balance is key

[GP Bob]

I don’t think we are over the specs on our truck with a 6,000 lb camper with a 800 lb tongue weight. The truck owners manual says tongue weight of 800 max without a WDH and 1,200 with WDH. I do like having a tongue weight of 12 to 13% because I believe it helps prevent sway and to me that is the biggest concern.

[move on]

Originally Posted by bneukam

Uhhh, no. It’s function is to restore the weight back to the front axle for proper control, and steering.

But yes, I agree if your rear axle is over it’s limit without one, then you are overloaded, and your asking more of a WDH, and can cause other issues.

Again, balance is key

Consider the fact that your tow vehicle, unloaded, already has too much load on the front axle. Some trucks can have a 60/40 front/rear weight distribution. That's not good and you don't want to restore that. If adding trailer tongue weight results in a 50/50 weight distribution then you are much better off. In fact it is better to have more weight on the rear axle than on the front when towing.

[hilgert]

A WDH does serve an important safety function in that, if adjusted properly, the front wheels have enough weight on them to allow for proper steering when towing.

I've seen folks tow without a WDH with their fronts ridiculously higher than they should be, and we try to get past those folks on the road as fast as we can (to put the impending accident behind us). It would have been funny if the danger to them/others were not so serious.

With only 1/4" change I think the OP has the WDH dialed in nicely...it took me a few adjustments on a prior travel trailer to get ours dialed in. If I had only 1/4" change I would make no further changes unless the weight distribution changes.

I think a tongue scale is an important piece of equipment to have for anyone towing a decently sized travel trailer. Whenever we made loading changes in the trailer I would re-weigh the tongue and adjust load until I got the hitch weight I wanted. I think it was a Sherline LM 2000 (gave it to a friend when we traded the trailer for our first Class C).